Jul. 30, 2014
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by Brett Molina, USAToday

by Brett Molina, USAToday

The messaging service Snapchat is reportedly in talks with Chinese commerce giant Alibaba on a round of funding that would value the tech startup at $10 billion.

According to Bloomberg, which cites "people with knowledge of the situation," talks are ongoing between the three-year old company that specializes in a service where users send messages that quickly disappear.

Representatives from both Alibaba and Snapchat declined comment to Bloomberg.

In November, reports surfaced that Snapchat spurned a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook. Three months later, the social networking giant announced its acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp for a staggering $16 billion.

Snapchat's reported funding talks are the latest in a string of eye-popping valuations from tech upstarts. In April, The Wall Street Journal reported travel site Airbnb secured a $450 million investment valuing the company at $10 billion. In July, cloud storage service Box announced a new round of funding that upped its valuation as high as $2.4 billion, reports Cnet. In June, Uber announced a $1.2 billion round of funding that would value the on-demand car service at $17 billion.